iTunes Match is now live. Can I or should I be able to play iTunes songs hosted in the Cloud?

Is this the future of how music is stored? I am intrigued by the prospect of hosting all my files in the cloud ( iTunes Match or something else) and be able to stream it to my Sonos. I have a 1000 CD library in limbo because my Netgear ReadyNAS died - however, not after I had uploaded everything to an Amazon s3 account ( pretty expensive hosting it there on a monthly basis). Need to pick up a new home server. An inexpensive cloud based hosting service solves all that for me ...

iTunes Match is now live. Can I or should I be able to play iTunes songs hosted in the Cloud?

Is this the future of how music is stored? I am intrigued by the prospect of hosting all my files in the cloud ( iTunes Match or something else) and be able to stream it to my Sonos. I have a 1000 CD library in limbo because my Netgear ReadyNAS died - however, not after I had uploaded everything to an Amazon s3 account ( pretty expensive hosting it there on a monthly basis). Need to pick up a new home server. An inexpensive cloud based hosting service solves all that for me ...

You underscore the need to backup your data drive....go overboard! I even keep a backup at the office just in case the unthinkable happens at home...the worst case scenario is that I lose a week of data.

From what I understand, iCloud does not stream, but places a copy on your device, so it would not be ideal for Sonos. Get your drive up and running, and ensure you have a backup because drives die and having a backup is cheap.

Given the low cost of hard drives, even a few dollars a month for Cloud storage seems excessive to me. Cloud becomes attractive if package maintenance is excessive hard or time consuming or a large number of users need to access a common database. In my opinion, storing one's own CD's in the cloud is not the proper use of Cloud technology.

Given the number of bad hair days that online music users are logging, I would not want my CD's held hostage by a data war out on the Internet.

What happens to the music if the Cloud company closes shop or changes its interface? One's library could be stranded for a while or permanently lost.

Particularly with Apple, once one drinks the tea, extracting one's self from the clan can be difficult. I'm also thinking of the recent Lion issue, caused by Apple changing their software due to a spat over software licensing.

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There seems to be a pendulum that swings between central computing and distributed computing. First we had main frames (large central computers), then terminals attached to main frames. This approach closed out small users because of the expensive machines and their expensive support. Security was relatively easy -- simply keep the door locked and restrict distribution of the printed output.

PC's upset this arrangement because they were inexpensive and support was "free". Actually, support was not "free" but the accountants could not track the time spent by volunteer users keeping things running. Early in the PC movement security was not a major issue because there were no networks and stealing any significant amount of data implied carrying out boxes and boxes of floppy disks. Plus, storage capacity on the PC's was so limited that a medium or large corporate database would not fit on the PC's.

The pendulum ticked toward distributed computing.

Networking PC's added a new dimension for maintenance because the local volunteers were running out of support bandwidth and the accountants started seeing the true cost of maintenance. Security was harder, but manageable because the network scope was relatively limited.

Once wide spread networking arrived (the Internet), PC capacity had grown and storing large amounts of data that in the past would choke the mainframes became trivial, the software had become much more complicated, networking became more complicated and security became more complicated. Now we needed formal PC maintenance and the accountants were all over the situation. Plus, the software security underpinnings were still locked into the ancient physical site security mode. Security became a major, major issue. Changing this mode would be prohibitively expensive (essentially, we would need to start over).

Enter the cloud. Now we can have centrally located and maintained computing and storage, this also better fits the physical security model that we can't seem to give up, and the accountants are happy because the little redundant maintenance fiefdoms can be consolidated and formally managed.

Buzz,
An excellent summation of the world of computers in the commercial world. Having been employed as a mainframe engineer in the early 70s, then a spell on propriety systems before IBM came up with the PC concept, I am still amazed at how the average mobile phone user is carrying around more computing power in his/her pocket than filled an entire environmentally controlled room twice the size of my current house. But I digress!

I would NEVER give the task to a third party (even for free!) to care for my data. I have spent many many hours creating my digital media collection and there's no way I would start again! I have also suffered sevaral "dead" system disks over the years. So back ups and more backups distributed across various hard drives is my way now and one I would strongly suggest everyone do the same.

I concur regarding maintaining control over one's digital media. I think the place where iTunes Match could really excel is if it were designed to work well with others, rather than the closed Apple ecosystem. The no streaming = a no deal for me.